LITHUANIA: Minimal Mondays, minimal.lt and the Supynes Festival – DJ KAMEU

Monday is usually not the best day to party. The week already started, mostly there is still enough satisfaction or headache from the weekend, so you don´t find many people who go out, therefore as well not many places are open and offer long lasting venues. But this is not the case in Vilnius, on Mondays there is always a special program of high quality electronic music at the Minimal Mondays events of minimal.lt. In summer they take place at the Vasaros Terasa, in winter at the indoor Kablys Club. We joined an event and interviewed one of the DJs.

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SWITZERLAND: BIGMaa. – Bernese Rap on Schwyzerdütsch

Half gangster, half jogging pants hero. BIGMaa. combines both and raps to musical blends of various electro and rap subgenres. „BIGMaa.“ basically means „Big Man“, a mixture of English and the Swiss German word for man. The Lord is indeed great and he raps in Swiss German. Sometimes funny, sometimes provocative, sometimes silly and often critical. Over the last few years, the eloquent musician has published a number of works written in Bernese studios or during his many stays abroad. „De Boca A River“ was recorded in Buenos Aires and brings Spanish influences into the beats, with „Nom de Dieu“ is played with French phrases.

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GERMANY: The OhOhOhs and The Oh!chestra – Classic Technoid Freakout

The OhOhOhs have made a name for themselves over the years as a live acoustic techno duo in Frankfurt and beyond. Whether through rousing concerts and summer festivals, on dance demonstrations or at funky parties. The show they delivered on stage each time was definitly worth a visit. When observing these two hyperactive music-geniuses while getting crazy on their instruments during a live concert, it´s impossible not to dance along. The trademark of the artists has always been to fabricate the technoid electro sounds completely by hand. So you have to be fast.

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JAPAN: Grind Records – Osaka Vinyl Store

Today we have some more insight into the Japanese music scene and here is an article about a cool record store in Osaka. I wrote already about the Drum & Bass events in the land of the rising sun. In that previous article is an interview with the UNSALTED founder and organisator Munetoshi Maruyama or just Maru. For recording that interview we needed a place to meet with Maru and DJ Fetus, they suggested the place G.R. Café Terrace. First I thought I would be just a small café or a bar. Actually it is, but as well much more. The place is the homebase of the labels Grind Records and Undergrind. There is a record store included, a lounge where you can get several cocktails and craft beers and as well delicious food. They have cloths and streetwear, magazines and dj equipment and a room where you can get a bit louder and use this dj equipment, make sounds and dance. And of course there are heaps of vinyls and records.

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SPAIN: Charitiydrinks – València

How a good party should be: Good parties have to be badly organized, the guests should have to pay a lot for entrance, the DJs should get put on a podium for glory and there they should play a lot of same-sounding crap music over and over again. A drink should be at minimum 10 Euros and at least have some ingredients from the next street, toilet water and other indefinite moistures in it, and of course before serving it should get put in very high quality bottles with nice labels. But in the end it´s not about the drinks. It´s about the cool and high expensive and hipster outfit. And the fucking shoes….

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GERMANY: MusicVideoPainter – TO5Z

His name is actually Tomasz. Take the first two and the last two letters, the „s“ is converted to „5“ and the artist name is finished. TO5Z is a hobbyist, a creative, whose artistic works pervades several genres. Generally he produces music, but then combines the result with visuals. As a painter, he makes a picture, a graphic or a collage for his track. This portrait, in turn, then acts as a catalyst for the final puzzle piece of his project work during the creation: a high-quality music video. The works are thus created in an extensive reciprocal process in the mind of the artist, in his workshop, in the studio and at locations. The results are awesome.

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GERMANY: Culture Map – Daniel Vargas & Sam Khayari

A map is used to get an overview of a region or a country. Thus, then a culture map would be a cultural map. Something that gives you an overview of local art and its history. That’s exactly what the initial idea of DJ Daniel Vargas and visual artist Sam Khayari from Rüsselsheim in Germany was. Meanwhile, a creative website has emerged on which the two Culture Map founders introduce artists from a growing regional and cross-genre network into interview videos and portraits.

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JAPAN: DougoyART Paintaction – Artists Baki Baki & Mon

We already stood several days in Matsuyama, we visited and explored all the fantastic sights and the interesting city. Actually we wanted to leave to Ōzu in the south the next day. But our friend Mathew Iannarone from the Sen Guesthouse recommended us definitely to stay another night because he has some secret special insider event. This hostel is a place we can very recommend by the way, but there will be an article about guesthouse owner Mathew and his exciting life in Japan in another article which is in preparation. But back to our special event, which really was worth it to stay. Mathew took us to a livingroom-live-painting session with the graffiti artists BAKI BAKI and MON. The name of the event is DougoyART. It´s an relaxed artistique festivity in an homelike atmosphere which was in the befriended guesthouse of Hisatsugu Shimizu. As well there is audio included and musicians are taking part, this time the band The Sun.

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SOUTH AFRICA: The Grind Radio & Jade Wood – Pretoria

If you are a journalist and you go into the jungle you can find the strangest things. For example other journalists. But sometimes these other journalists are more interesting than the jungle at the moment. Some kind of these meetings happened in Ciudad del Este in Paraguay near the Iguazu Waterfalls this spring. Coincidental at the same time when we stood there in a mansion there was as well the journalist, national-geographic writer and co-founder of The Grind Radio: Jade Wood from South Africa.

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JAPAN: Osaka Junglists – Drum & Bass Japan

This year we could cheer to the start of the next as one of the firsts on the planet. New Year’s Eve in Japan, the country of the rising sun, Yeah! We celebrated in Osaka namely here:  大阪府大阪市住之江区北加賀屋名村造船跡地.That means Namura Zosenjo Atochi and it is an discarded and remodeled shipyard and the Osaka Creative Center, a very cool location and perfect for parties. We knew that there would be DJ-acts like Soichi Terade, Peter van Hoesen and several unfamiliar artists and groups, and we knew that there would be nice electronic music. But we didn´t know that there would be as well fantastic Drum & Bass on the second floor! Surprise! Incredible!

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